Supriya Ganesh needed a minute.

After news broke in April that her character, Dr. Samira Mohan, would not be in season 3 of The Pitt, the response online — shock, anger, disbelief, sadness — was so swift and overwhelming that she had to log off.

“I’m so grateful for the support and I feel like there were so many people who really loved her and really, really loved what she represented and the role she had to play,” Ganesh tells Entertainment Weekly. “But, you know, all good things come to an end. I think that is the thing that saddens me the most. I’m gonna be losing this community of people who really loved her and saw a part of themselves in her.”

Ganesh’s exit, coupled with the promotion of Ayesha Harris, who previously recurred as night shift resident Dr. Parker Ellis, to series regular was the latest shake-up for the Emmy-winning medical drama on which each season covers one 15-hour shift. Last year, after its breakout inaugural season, Tracy Ifeachor departed the series, while Sepideh Moafi joined in season 2.

Season 1 saw the senior resident, nicknamed Slo Mo because she takes too long with patients, question whether she belongs in the emergency department. She gets a boost of confidence during the mass casualty incident, supported by Dr. Abbot (Shawn Hatosy) through a risky procedure, before crashing out in the bathroom from the adrenaline rush.

Mohan’s season 2 arc unfolded essentially in reverse, as she starts the season — set on July 4, 10 months after season 1 — feeling empowered and brimming with confidence, which gradually erodes as she deals with personal and professional crises, leading to a panic attack and ultimately has her once again questioning her place in the ED.

As is customary on the show, actors are not told their full storylines at the start of the season. But the actress, who was pre-med before landing The Pitt and was an MCAT tutor while season 1 aired, did pitch a season 2 idea to creator and showrunner R. Scott Gemmill that wound up pivotal to Mohan’s journey.

“They want us to live hour by hour by hour, so I don’t really think anyone really knows where the season is going,” Ganesh says. “I had spoken to Scott about doing this insurance storyline, and I didn’t know if anything would come of it, really. So the fact that it did and then it even paid off in like a bigger way, that was really cool to see.”

Mohan treats Orlando (William Guirola), a diabetic patient who refuses proper care because he does not have insurance and is in medical debt, culminating in a heartbreaking decision. The idea was inspired by Ganesh’s own experience with the flaws of the American healthcare system. Raised in New Delhi, where she “had a lot of easy access to healthcare,” the 28-year-old was taken aback when she returned to the U.S. and realized quickly that would not be the case stateside.

“I think, very early on, I low-key committed insurance fraud without realizing,” she says with a laugh. “But it was this awful realization of, every time I need to go get healthcare, I need to deal with unimaginable levels of bureaucracy and red tape. And to someone who essentially had never dealt with that their entire life or really even seen people deal with that their entire life, I was just so thrown by it. I just remember going to the doctor being as easy as just going to the doctor. I think in the year that we were filming the show, there was a lot of political activism around it. Also, every year I have to qualify for SAG health insurance. And here, after you turn 25, [you’re not] able to be on your parents’ health insurance.”

“So I just really wanted to do something with that, because I feel like no one’s really [captured] that on TV,” she adds.

The storyline also dovetails with Mohan’s backstory: her father died when she was 13 due to improper care, and she’s been studying racial disparity in healthcare. In season 2, her mother, in a whirlwind new romance, war-dials her all day. Overwhelmed by the stress and turmoil, Mohan has a panic attack in the 10th episode, about which Ganesh found out while filming the ninth episode.

“I kinda had to go like, all right, well, you don’t know a panic attack’s ever gonna come in real life,” she says of prepping for the scene. “I’ve had panic attacks before. I think I started having imposter syndrome about my anxiety, where I was like, is this even really a panic attack? And I would research it and kind of go like, oh, no, it is. But there were little things I did just to make sure my body knew that I wasn’t having a panic attack, like things that other people experience that I don’t, and other just little physical things that I tried to build into that moment.”

Afterwards, Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) upbraids Mohan for bringing her “mommy issues” into the workplace. Mohan has disproportionately been on the receiving end of the spiraling attending’s misplaced ire, but Ganesh appreciates the similarities between the pair: two people who have made work their whole lives, which have also not exactly gone the way they had envisioned.

In the finale, Mohan and Robby apologize to each other and tell one another it’s not too late to start anew.

“I just thought it was a good way to explore like the mirrors between the two characters,” Ganesh says of their final conversation.

While Robby and Dr. Al-Hashimi (Moafi) separately suggest Mohan go into geriatrics, she does not make a definitive decision about her future in the finale, which certainly compounds fans’ anger about Mohan being written out of season 3. But Ganesh and her costars knew that a rotating cast every season was part of the design of the series from the jump, and, for her at least, it did not impact the way she approached the show or Mohan.

“That was something that was just always spoken about when we were filming, just that there’s characters that are gonna come and go,” Ganesh says. “Noah would joke around and laugh and go like, ‘Who am I gonna get rid of this season?’ as a joke, so it just was very much something that was just part of how they structured the show. I think the idea of living in a day is super helpful because eventually the character doesn’t know what’s gonna happen to her or the show really also at times doesn’t really know what’s gonna happen to her at any point. I think it’s just, like, you have to live within the context of a day.”

Season 3 will take place four months later in November. Gemmill has confirmed that Mohan is still at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center but is just not on shift that day. Ganesh declines to speculate where Mohan could be, in all aspects, at that juncture. “I just think it’s up to the writers, you know? The team and the show — Noah, John [Wells, executive producer and director], and Scott — really have control over that, and I don’t, and they do everything with such intention.”

For now, the Actor Award winner, shared with the Pitt cast, plans to spend her summer “watching as many movies as I can.”

“The snack people are sick of me. They’re just like, ‘You again?'” she says. “But I am using my AMC Stubs account.”

And she’ll continue to bask in the love from fans. “They’ll always love [Mohan], so that’s not going away.” She pauses. “Okay, well, maybe it will, so we don’t know,” she laughs. “I hope not!”

Seasons 1 and 2 of The Pitt are streaming on HBO Max.